THE MEMOIRS OF MUSTAPHA HUSSAIN - Malaysia Today

The First Malay Nationalists 159
long after, Onan Haji Siraj, brother-in-law to Ibrahim Yaakub arrived. His
face was red with anger, looking ferocious, shouting and banging the table,
angry at us for not maintaining our discipline.” Ishak also wrote that soon
after Singapore fell, before the dust of war could settle, Onan had opened
“two sundry shops in Joo Chiat. The shops were full of rice, flour and
other food, drinks and clothes.”
Onan’s conduct in the course of our move from Ipoh to Singapore
was appalling; he was abusive towards other KMM youths. He even
threatened to burn the homes of Ipoh youths who refused to move with
him. He had little respect for me, his former teacher, because he was the
brother-in-law of Ibrahim. When the Japanese were in power, that meant
a lot. If his treatment of fellow party members was as described by Pak
Sako, just imagine his attitude towards detainees such as Raja Ahmed
Hisham, Jalaluddin Abu Bakar, Hashim, Haji Nordin and several Dutch
intelligence agents.
After the fall of Singapore, detainee Yusof Ishak (later Singapore’s
first president) was rebuked by Ibrahim and Onan for running a rival
newspaper, Utusan Melayu. Yet for reasons only he knew, Ibrahim
accused me of arresting Rahim Kajai. Why should I have hurt the man?
He was one of my political mentors and a friend of my brother at the
Arabic school in Penang. I do not want to speculate on who laid his hands
on the old man. I don’t know, but, it had to do with the fact that Rahim
Kajai left Warta Malaya to join the people’s press, Utusan Melayu. In
an article, ‘Kajai Award Tomorrow Night’ (Utusan Malaysia, 11 December
1983), Ishak Haji Muhammad (Pak Sako) explained the conflict between
Ibrahim and Rahim Kajai:
Maybe Kajai had heard something and suspected KMM leader Ibrahim Yaakub
of being a Japanese spy. He (Rahim Kajai) suspected KMM was a body whose
members were Japanese spies. This was not true. Maybe Ibrahim Yaakub was
involved, or had connections with the Japanese, but those who knew this were
just a few, like Onan, Abdul Karim Rashid and Hassan Haji Manan. Other KMM
members, like me, knew nothing about the spying. In 1941, I was an Editor of
Majlis when that happened. KMM had no connections with other bodies, open
or covert.
At the same time, I wondered where Ibrahim Yaakub had obtained the
money... to buy the Warta Malaya Press from Syed Hussein Alsagoff... I did
not investigate the matter as I was living in Kuala Lumpur. Kajai, in Singapore,
may have heard something. As Utusan Melayu never saw eye to eye with Warta
Malaya, so Kajai was not on good terms with Ibrahim Yaakub. Because KMM
was under the leadership of Ibrahim Yaakub, it was a concern much disliked
by Kajai and Utusan Melayu.
Back to stories about war detainees in Singapore: among them were
Captain Mohd Noor Hashim and Chief Inspector Hamzah from Kelantan.